


wherever i'm with you

by RowboatCop



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: (i started this after Lauren dropped the "D" word okay), Cuddling, Daisy and Coulson figuring out their relationship, Day 2, F/M, Flirting, Friends to Lovers, Oral Sex, Undercover, Vaginal Fingering, skoulsonfest2k16redux
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-22
Updated: 2016-07-22
Packaged: 2018-07-26 01:26:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,649
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7554790
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RowboatCop/pseuds/RowboatCop
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Coulson and Daisy go undercover at a beach resort. Mostly awkward flirting, cuddling, and figuring out their relationship.</p>
            </blockquote>





	wherever i'm with you

He shares the mission briefing with her, looking hopeful and happy, and it makes a rock settle in her stomach,

“...figured you wouldn’t mind a vacation for a week or so? It might be nice.”

“Yeah,” she agrees, smiling weakly.

“I know since…” He swallows, doesn’t finish his sentence, and she appreciates that. “I just thought this would be nice.”

His eyes are so wide, and he wants _so much_ for this to make her happy, so it’s hard not to give it to him, hard to withhold something that clearly means this much.

“It would,” she agrees, forcing a smile. “A trip would be nice, Coulson.”

“The actual recon should be easy,” he tells her, like he knows he still needs to convince her. “And it’s a really nice resort. Great restaurants, shopping, a pool, and it’s right on the beach —”

“It sounds nice, Coulson,” she reassures him, and it _does_. It does sound nice. Touristy and bourgie, but nice.

Amenities sound nice, and they’ve joked about it before, about the way she had been living, about the things she missed in the months she was on her own. And she knows it’s obvious that she hasn’t felt quite settled since she’s been back at the Playground, either, like she's not sure what _home_ even means anymore.

It’s a sweet gesture, and she appreciates it.

“Yeah?” He smiles at her, hopeful and kind and _Coulson_ and it makes her stomach twist.

“Yeah,” she agrees.

“So you can set up identities?”

She looks down at the paper he hands her, the basic necessary specs — Michael Smith, widower, and Rachel, his...daughter.

 

* * *

 

 

As she packs, everything she puts into her suitcase feels like some kind of referendum on what this week away is supposed to be.

(Underwear. She never wears anything but basic cotton lately, but something about a week at a nice resort makes her want to be fancy. Except it’s a week with Coulson and what exactly does it mean if she brings nice underwear? You don’t bring nice underwear for a trip with your father. But he’s not going to _see_ them, so what does it matter if she brings them?)

And it’s not like any part of her has ever really thought, in any kind of certain way, that she _doesn’t_ want Coulson to be her father. It’s just that as soon as it’s out there between them, even in this fake way, it makes her feel...wrong. A knot in her stomach that she doesn’t quite have words for.

(Jeans. Except she’s going on vacation, to an island resort, and maybe she has a chance to bring some clothes that are different. For her. Not for Coulson. She tosses them aside.)

It makes her have to go through and catalog everything they’ve ever said to each other, everything they’ve ever done, everything that’s ever defined who they are to each other.

(Nightgown. A lacy thing she bought back...before…but has never actually worn because she sleeps in sweats. Coulson knows that. What would he think if he saw this nightgown? She tosses it aside.)

There’s nothing between them that screams _father_ , she’s sure of it. One of the things Hive had convinced her of was that Coulson was always trying to protect her, always looking down at her as someone he needed to save. But it’s not true. She _knows_ it’s not, she knows he respects her, she knows he cares about her input about her decision making about _the way she sees the world_ . He values her for herself, and the fact of it matters to her, has _always_ mattered to her.

(Simmons gives her sundresses and lounge pants and things that look beachy but sophisticated, and actually not at all like things Simmons would have. _A trip I was going to take_ , she says somewhat cryptically, but resigned like it’s a possible life that escaped her, and Daisy tries really hard not to think that maybe it's a possible life that crumbled to pieces in a cave in Puerto Rico, _so you should enjoy them._ So she’s going to enjoy them, she decides, if only for Simmons.)

Coulson is Coulson, though, and who knows how Coulson would try to be a father, what being a father would mean to him. Maybe it’s all fine, maybe it’s all exactly the way things have always been between them, no changes, nothing for her to worry about.

(Bikini. Well, it’s her only bathing suit. But it’s...revealing. But it’s not _for him_. She rolls her eyes at herself and packs the fucking bathing suit because what’s the other option, really.)

She wishes that the idea that maybe this label means nothing — maybe for him this just means _them_ the same as they’ve always been — was comforting.

 

* * *

 

 

They climb out of Lola together, Coulson dressed down in fitted jeans and a pale blue button down, slim cut and untucked and rolled halfway up his arms, and he doesn’t look like a dad to her.

She’s had a lot of men want to be her dad — awkward back pats and driving lessons and one who scowled at a prospective boyfriend — but it’s never exactly occurred to her that that’s how Coulson sees himself.

The way he seemed so hopeful about this, though, the way it seemed so obvious to him that these are the roles they should inhabit…

Daisy forces a smile and climbs out of the car, smoothing down the bottom of her white sundress as she walks around the car to stand beside him. Once she’s there, though, she doesn’t know what to do with herself.

Maybe it’s just that she’s never spent a lot of time imagining herself in the role of _daughter_ , even when she had father figures — even when she had a father — so it feels foreign in a way that _lover_ or _friend_ generally don’t.

But now? Now it’s like she can’t even remember what she would normally do with Coulson, like even the idea of just being _normal_ has no meaning because how are they normally, anyways?

“Relax,” Coulson murmurs to her, leaning in so she can feel him pressed against her left side, and then he sets a soft hand on her shoulder, warm against her bare skin. Her stomach does a flip at the feel of his skin against hers — not exactly familiar, but not unheard of either.

It feels _unfatherly_ , feels like something very different, and she doesn’t know what to do with that except push it down.

So she does, she pushes it down and just clenches her jaw when his hand moves from her shoulder to slide down her back, like this is normal, like the feel of his palm on her isn’t strange.

Because this is _fatherly_.

“I’m relaxed,” she smiles at him.

“Sure,” he wrinkles his brow in her direction, a look that says he can’t understand what’s going on in her head.

A bellhop arrives to get their luggage out of Lola’s small trunk, and then carries the two bags ahead of them as Coulson steers her gently towards the check-in desk.

“What are we going to do first?”

“Are you hungry?” He looks eager in a way that says he _is_ hungry, in a way that says he’s excited about all the fine dining at the bourgie resort, and Daisy can’t help her fond smile, the way it makes her _actually_ relax a bit.

It’s a rare thing lately to see Coulson so chill, and even if it’s awkward for her, she can’t help but like it.

He slips a bill to the bellhop, and they watch their luggage disappear into the bank of elevators before moving towards a pocket of restaurants on the resort’s ground floor.

“That one’s supposed to be great, but we’re underdressed,” Coulson tells her as he presses his right hand to her lower back, like this is just a thing he’s going to do now, and with his left he gestures at the menu out front of a fancy place, where a woman dressed in an obviously expensive cocktail dress walks inside. “Maybe tomorrow.”

His hand splays wide across her back, warm through the thin white cotton dress, and his fingers pulse against her like he’s excited and also...comfortable. He’s been more comfortable, she thinks, since this mission has been on the table, since it’s been somehow official that these are their roles.

It makes her smile, this chill slightly eager version of Coulson she’s only barely caught glimpses of in the last years, but it also hurts in a way she can’t exactly understand.

Just because she likes to ruin things, maybe. Just because he’s offering her something good and she can’t seem to make herself want it.

Whatever her confused feelings are, though, one thing she’s always been good at is being whatever she needs to be to fit somewhere. And, well, it’s more than she deserves to ever have someone be _comfortable_ around her again. They’ve all seen what she’s capable of, how much she could hurt them.

So, if he’s comfortable...of course it’s worth it.

“Coulson,” she whispers because she’s so bad at the undercover, and she maybe needs a drink if she’s going to bring herself to call him _dad_ , “I didn’t bring anything fancy enough for that place.”

He shrugs, like it’s no big deal.

“We can buy you a dress if you need it.”

He’s right; they can. There are like five boutiques on the other side of this floor, and this place is _nice_ , nicer than anywhere she’s ever been (and she and Miles were once able to swing a free stay at the Bellagio while they were doing a job, at the time the most amazing island of consumerist opulence she’d ever seen).

“That sounds kinda... _Pretty Woman_.”

Coulson smiles down at her, the one with his eyebrows slightly furrowed like he isn’t sure exactly what to make of her, but doesn’t take his hand off her back, which is sort of surprising.

“Or we can skip it,” he suggests, “if you’re —”

“No, it’s fine,” she cuts him off. Because, okay, something about it is weird. But it’s also fine because it’s more than she deserves from him, and he seems so happy to give it to her.

 

* * *

 

 

The restaurant they settle on is all seafood with an extensive raw bar, and Coulson’s ridiculously excited about all the varieties of oysters.

“You’re sure you don’t want any?”

“Raw oysters?” Daisy makes a face. “Yeah, I’ll pass.”

Coulson shrugs, but shoots her a fond smile before he disappears towards a counter displaying the selection today, and Daisy turns her attention out to the bay. They have a nice table against a large window, and the day is clear enough that she can see far out to sea, to where a distant ship looks almost like it’s floating above the horizon.

And it hasn’t occurred to her before, but she hasn’t been on the water like this since everything happened with her mother, not really. She wonders if Coulson has been to the beach since his implanted memories of Tahiti.

“Hi,” a voice calls her out of her thoughts, and she turns to see a guy — probably thirty, white, brown hair and a well-trimmed beard, wearing cargo shorts and a pink-tinged Hawaiian shirt — smiling down at her. “Can I sit?”

She raises her eyebrows at the audacity of it — most guys would have _at least_ given their name first.

“I’m waiting for someone to get back,” she tells him instead, gesturing towards the counter that’s displaying Coulson’s precious oysters.

“Your dad?”

She swallows, but forces an easy smile.

“Yeah.”

“I’m here with family, too,” he tells her. “It’s kind of a drag. I don’t know if you’ve noticed but this place is…”

She glances around the restaurant, taking the time to notice the clientele a little better.

“A little middle-aged?”

“You said it.”

Daisy laughs and then turns back to see Coulson laughing at something the bartender — an attractive woman who’s probably ten years older than her — said as he sucks down an oyster. Making a choice, she kicks out one of the chairs across from her, and Mr. Hawaiian shirt sits down.

“Jason,” he offers.

“Rachel,” Daisy answers, kind of smiling into it because it might be nice to be someone else, actually. Someone who doesn’t have superpowers, and has never worked for a spy organization, and doesn’t know what it feels like to almost kill her best friend, who has never tried to basically bring about the end of the world.

“You just got here, right?”

“Yeah,” she agrees.

“I could show you around later, if you want,” he offers. “You know, some places that are a little bit more...cool.”

She doesn’t comment, but her eyes drift down his decidedly uncool shirt — Coulson is way cooler, she thinks, and _he’s_ a dork — and Jason squirms.

“My mom…” He rolls his eyes.

“Ah,” Daisy nods in understanding. And it’s not like she knows _exactly_ , but she’s had foster mothers here and there who bought her horrifically ugly clothes that she _loved_ because they were gifts.

“So, are you interested? We could go out tonight.”

“I don’t even know you,” Daisy reminds him, and he shrugs.

“You know I’m not fifty.”

She laughs, but tilts her head as she takes him in. It’s sort of funny, the way you think about age differently when your best friend just turned forty five and you’re on vacation with your fifty-two year old boss, feeling weird about the fact that he maybe thinks of you as a daughter.

“Tell me something else about you.”

“I got sucked into a family vacation,” he tells her, rolling his eyes. “My fiance just called off our wedding, and this is supposed to make me feel better.” He frowns at her. “TMI, right?”

“No,” Daisy shakes her head, smiling and dropping her guard a bit. “No. I guess I have a similar deal. So pitiful, I earned a vacation?”

“See, we have something in common,” he smiles across the table at her, and he doesn’t seem so bad. And then he frowns as he looks beyond her, stands up quickly like he’s done something wrong.

She glances back to see Coulson approaching, holding two daiquiri-looking things that seem exactly like the kind of drink he’d want to avoid.

“Um,” Mr. Hawaiian shirt backs away from the table. “I’m in room 8570. If you want to go out tonight.”

Daisy nods and watches him leave, glancing up at Coulson’s bemused face as he sets down the drinks.

“Hot date?”

It makes her blush for some reason, the idea of Coulson thinking she would —

“He just came over, I didn’t —”

“Was he bothering you?” Coulson looks up over at Mr. Hawaiian shirt, like he’s trying to figure out if he needs to do something, and Daisy rolls her eyes.

“No. He just offered to take me out tonight, show me somewhere where...younger people were congregating.”

Coulson nods, and she can’t exactly read his expression.

“You should go,” he tells her. “I mean, if you want to. Don’t feel like you need to spend all your time hanging around me.”

It makes her frown because she’d actually _like_ to spend all her time hanging around Coulson, but that doesn’t exactly feel like something she can say.

Maybe that’s what bothers her about this realization that he likes the idea of being her father, is that he sees them as...separate. Not friends. Him as someone she wouldn’t want to spend her time with.

(Her as someone _he_ wouldn’t want —)

“Daisy?”

“Yeah,” she nods, shakes the thought from her head. “Yeah I guess I will go out tonight.”

With — fuck, she can’t even remember his name. Mr. Hawaiian Shirt. In room 8570.

 

* * *

 

 

Their suite is nice. A large common room with a balcony that overlooks the beach, and two bedrooms that split off one side, a shared bathroom between them.

“You’re sure you don’t mind if I go out?”

Daisy looks longingly at the large couch in the shared living space, imagines how nice it could be to just...be there, with Coulson, comfortable and relaxed.

“Of course. I want you to enjoy yourself.” He says it with such disgusting sincerity, like he believes that pushing her out of the suite is what _she_ really wants. (Because why would she want to spend the evening with her father?)

It makes her want to scream, so she squashes it down and ducks into the one of the bedrooms to change.

She’s felt so fucking lonely these past months. Alone in the world. Alone in her head. Even being back at SHIELD, she’s still...separate.

There’s the way Mack has tried _so hard_ to pretend he’s not afraid of her. She _almost_ can’t tell, he’s really good at it, but she knows he is. And every time she looks at him, all she sees is his body on the ground, his face as he realized she was going to kill him.

After Andrew woke up, May left with him indefinitely, maybe forever, and she can’t say she blames either one of them.

Simmons has always orbited Fitz in their own little drama, and that’s only worse now.

Coulson has been there for her, there but distant, there but somehow not exactly.

At least she gets it, now. She gets it and she can move past it, she gets it and she can work with it, can appreciate what he’s willing to give.

She calls down to Mr. Hawaiian Shirt’s room (Jason Jason Jason) and sets a plan before going through her luggage and pulling out a change of clothes, something that says ‘I’m a sophisticated adult,’ and also ‘this is friendly and nothing else.’

When she leaves her room, wearing wide-legged white linen pants and a cropped shirt that shows off her shoulders, Coulson has changed into swim trunks and a t-shirt, though he’s sitting on the couch like he’s waiting.

“You look beautiful,” he tells her, his voice quiet and sincere, his eyes traveling up and down her body in a way that she would almost think was _interested_ except that he’s not, so she knows it isn’t.

She just smiles awkwardly and glances away.

“Are you going down to the pool?”

“No, the hot tub,” he points out to the balcony, and she had missed it before, private and just for them, outside under a nearly full moon.

“So that’s why you want me to go out tonight,” she half-jokes, and Coulson frowns at her.

“I just want you to enjoy yourself.”

“I’d enjoy myself staying in with you,” she tells him, and it shouldn’t feel like such a big thing to admit, but it does.

It makes him smile, though, soft eyes and smile lines, and she finds herself walking to the couch and sitting down beside him.

“You’ll have four more nights to stay in with me,” he promises her. “But you’ll have more fun —”

“Going out with a stranger to some loud bar on the beach?”

She frowns, and Coulson reaches forward to set a soft hand on her cheek, like this is something he does. It’s...nice, his fingertips on her cheek, and she can’t help but lean into it.

“We’ll stay in tomorrow,” he promises.

“A quiet night? Just us?”

“Yeah,” he agrees, and she can feel the way his eyes are searching her face, like she’s managed to confuse him. She drops her gaze down, though, down away from his questioning eyes.

To his leg, exposed in the shorts.

They don’t talk about it, the way he was using a cane, the way she broke his leg, (the way he made it worse because he refused to rest until she was back).

The bone was sticking out of his leg, Mack told her. It was _bad_ , which explains why there’s a scar running up from his calf over his knee, disappearing under the swim trunks.

The sight of it makes her blood run cold, makes her stomach churn, and it’s not exactly conscious when she reaches out to touch him, to set her hand gently just over his knee, brushing up against the hem of his shorts.

“Hey.” His hand is still on her cheek, and he tilts her head up so they’re meeting eyes again. Somehow, she’s surprised that he doesn’t flinch or back away, but he doesn’t, even though she’s touching him on the spot where she _broke_ him. “It wasn’t your fault.”

He’s the only one who has ever managed to say it in a way where she believes it, even though she knows — logically, she _knows_ — that Mack doesn’t blame her either, that May believes in her, too.

She nods once, letting the weight of her head rest gently in his palm as she traces her thumb softly along the shiny, pale pink line, up his knee to where it disappears under his shorts.

They’re interrupted by a knock at the door.

“That’s, um,” she pauses — has forgotten his name again.

“Um?” He smiles at her, gentle and soft and everything she wants in the entire world, even if she’s never quite figured out exactly what that means.

“I forgot his name,” she rolls her eyes at herself, and Coulson smiles wider.

“Have fun,” he tells her, with his stupid sincerity, and she nods, tries not to think about his gentleness and his soft eyes and the fact that he’s going to get into the hot tub.

 

* * *

 

 

They have coffee in the common space the next morning, and it’s not that different from a lot of mornings at the Playground, which is oddly comforting. The biggest difference is how he’s dressed.

He’s wearing sweats and a white t-shirt, slightly rumpled from sleep, and there’s something about seeing him so... _not_ put together. She likes it.

As much as he’s seen her in her pajamas plenty of times, she’s not seen him dressed down like this since he stopped carving. Usually, when they find themselves together in the mornings, he’s already dressed even if she’s still in her pajamas, so this is...nice, sort of. The kind of difference she doesn’t mind.

So it’s very much like a regular kind of morning — the two of them sitting together, sipping coffee discussing a mission — but different. Better.

The day after tomorrow, there’s some kind of private auction, one Michael and Rachel Smith are invited to, with some questionable alien tech for sale.

Other than that, they’re supposed to _keep their ears to the ground_.

“We didn’t need five nights at a resort to crash _one_ event,” Daisy tells him, raising an eyebrow over her mug.

“Are you complaining?”

She looks around the well-furnished room, down at the beach and the ocean outside.

“No,” she sighs.

“You deserve a vacation.”

“You, too?”

He smiles at that, but brushes it off.

“So what do you want to do today?”

“Beach?” She suggests, looking out to where it’s sunny and warm, and the water is so clear and blue.

“Sure,” he answers, though he looks more than a little unsure.

“Are you —”

“The beach sounds good,” he cuts her off, and she nods. “Did you have fun last night?”

Daisy frowns a little at his change of subject.

“Fine,” she answers, shrugging it off.

It was fine. Mr. Hawaiian shirt had changed out of his Hawaiian shirt, and it had been...fine. A few drinks, shooting a few games of pool.

“Partying with the other young people?”

“Yeah,” she rolls her eyes.

He frowns at her, like he’s worried, and she doesn’t want that — for him to worry about her.

“Lately, I just prefer...quiet.”

“I understand,” he tells her, and she thinks he really does. “I just wish you…”

“Hmm?”

He shakes his head, and they rinse their mugs and retreat to their rooms to change.

When she comes out of her room in her suit, wearing a maxi dress cover up, Coulson is standing in the living area in his trunks with a blue-toned Hawaiian shirt on top.

It is very very uncool, and somehow she loves it anyways.

He smiles at her, all dorky and Coulson, and Daisy pulls out a bottle of sunscreen. It feels awkward, suddenly, the idea of asking him to do her back.

“Do you need…” She doesn’t exactly ask him, shaking the bottle in his direction.

“No,” he answers. “I got my face and arms, and I’ll stay covered up.”

She narrows her eyes a bit, trying to figure out what’s going on, and he taps his chest softly, just over his heart.

“Oh,” she breathes, and she feels like an asshole because of course she forgot about Coulson’s scar. Not that she’s ever seen it. She hasn’t, but she should remember it’s there, should have realized that this would be difficult for him especially since he’s already wearing swim trunks that show the scar on his leg. At least the latest prosthetic model is nearly undetectable at the attachment point. “Would you rather —”

“No. No, the beach sounds good.”

“Okay.”

She nods, but it feels even more awkward to ask him to do her back.

“Here,” he steps forward and takes the bottle of sunscreen from her before she asks, like there’s nothing remotely awkward about putting lotion on her skin, and she tries really hard to believe that as she turns her back to him and slips off the dress.

Her back breaks out in gooseflesh as the cool air hits her skin, so much of it exposed by the red bandeau top, and she shifts nervously from foot to foot, her gaze settled on one of the bottles of water sitting on the bar as she waits.

There’s a long pause behind her, total silence where she would almost swear he isn’t breathing, and then she can hear him squeeze out a pool of lotion on his palm. Another long hesitation, and his hands land on her shoulders, warm and light, and it occurs to her that she wouldn’t be able to tell which was the prosthetic if she didn’t know.

Coulson takes his time, and she wasn’t expecting that, for him to be so slow. His fingers move along the tops of her shoulders, slipping down and forward just enough to brush her collar bones, and then he sweeps up the back of her neck.

“Lift your hair,” he whispers, and his voice is so _soft_ and _low_ and...different.

She complies, gathering the strands into a bun and sliding the rubber band off her wrist to hold it in place.

His right hand is warm as he spends too long rubbing lotion into the back of her neck, his fingers curving slightly around her throat in a way that makes her want to moan and sink back against his chest.

Daisy clears her throat instead, and it’s like it snaps Coulson out of a fugue state. His hands move from her neck down to rub lotion into the rest of her upper back, above the line of her top, working into shoulder blades.

He pulls away to get more, and then his hands land lower on her back, rub down the center of her spine before making circles across her back until his fingers brush her stomach, wrapped around her middle.

“You got your front?”

“Yes,” she answers, barely a whisper because she’s not supposed to be enticed by the idea of Coulson’s fingers on her front, of Coulson touching her _other_ places.

(It’s not supposed to feel so good when he touches her like this.)

She can hear him swallow as he steps back, like this was confusing for him, too, and she wants to ask him what that confusion means.

Instead, she tosses the bottle into a canvas bag with some water bottles and a book, and Coulson promptly takes the bag from her and shoulders it as they walk down to the beach.

She ends up keeping her coverup on for the first few hours as they stroll lazily down the beach, on the sand that’s just wet enough to be firm.

“I hate to think that you’ve missed out on having fun because of...everything,” he tells her, like he’s been waiting to pick back up their earlier conversation.

“I was missing out on having fun because of _everything_ a long time before I joined SHIELD.”

He looks over at her, sad serious eyes over the tops of his sunglasses, the kind of eyes that make him look _old_ , older than he is, even.

“I wish I could have given you...something better.”

“It was never your job to give me anything, Coulson.”

He smiles down at the sand below their feet, and she wonders if he’s trying to work up to it — to tell her that he thinks of her as a daughter and she really _really_ doesn’t want him to say that.

“When I joined up, I was younger than most of the other recruits. A lot of them had a degree, or some military experience.”

“Do you feel like you missed out on things?”

“Maybe,” he shrugs. “But I wouldn’t do it differently.”

“Neither would I.”

He furrows his brow at her.

“Okay, so _some_ things I would do differently. But joining SHIELD?” She shakes her head.

Her parents, she supposes. She’d get back her parents. And then she would have never found SHIELD, probably. She’s not sure whether that’s supposed to sound like a bad thing or not.

It’s like he reads her thoughts.

“When you changed your name, I used to wonder what my life would have been like if you’d had your family, if you’d always been Daisy Johnson. If we’d never met.”

“Better, I imagine,” Daisy answers lightly, but the truth is that it hurts to think about how much better off —

“No,” Coulson cuts her off. “No, much worse.”

Because he wouldn’t have someone to think of as a daughter, probably, because pretty much any other way she thinks of it, he’d have been better off.

“Hey,” he touches her shoulder lightly, stops them on the sand, and a gust of wind blows her dress up around her thighs. “You saved my life,” he reminds her. “You helped me find out what had happened to me. Without you…”

“You would have done fine,” she tells him, then gathers her courage to reach forward and touch the near-invisible point where the prosthetic attaches. “Much better, actually.”

“No. Daisy —”

“How’s your rehab coming?”

She changes the subject, looking back down at his leg, because she doesn’t want to listen to him tell her it’s all fine right now; sometimes she just needs to feel the way things aren’t fine but could maybe _improve_?

Coulson lets it hang there for a moment, like he’s quietly disapproving, but then nods.

“Well, mostly. I’m almost back to normal.”

“That’s good,” she whispers. “Is the walking too much?”

“It’s fine,” he answers. “I’m fine, I promise.”

“Good.”

He looks at her for a long moment, serious and thoughtful, like he has a lot he wants to say, but instead he lets it go.

“Let’s head back,” he offers instead, and they turn back to where they dropped their stuff. And they’ve never been the best at small talk, they’ve never had that much _room_ for small talk, but it seems to come easily.

“So back when you joined SHIELD…”

“Uh huh?”

“Was May one of the people with more experience than you?”

He laughs and starts in on a story about May’s mother, about the legacy Melinda May brought with her, and it’s comforting. It’s comforting and it’s _them_ , and for the first time since they got here, she stops worrying about what to call that.

 

* * *

 

 

They get in the hot tub that night, after the last rays of light have faded. Daisy goes first, sinking her head below the surface of the water so the whole world is drowned out by the jets and the warmth, and she likes it.

When she comes up, he’s standing by the edge, still wearing his Hawaiian shirt, and smiling.

“It’s nice, right?”

“Yeah,” she agrees.

He goes to step into the tub without taking off his shirt, and Daisy frowns.

“DId you wear a shirt in here last night?”

Coulson swallows.  

“No, but —”

“It’s just me, Coulson.”

He smiles at that, but it’s an awkward kind of smile.

“No one’s really seen it. May saw a part of it, but —”

“But when you were with...” She stops because it feels wrong to say Rosalind’s name. “I mean, didn’t you…”

He raises an eyebrow at her, though, and doesn’t seem too bothered.

“I kept my shirt on.”

She nods. Tries not to think about Coulson having sex. With his shirt on.

“You don’t have to take it off. I just meant —”

She stops talking as he starts unbuttoning it, working from the bottom so that she sees his belly first, the ridges in the muscle above his hips as the breeze blows his shirt more open, and then his scar.

He looks down at the ground as it comes fully into view, and when he turns to set his shirt down on a chair, she has to hold back a gasp at the sight of a matching scar on his back.

“Ugly, isn’t it?”

She shakes her head, and Coulson raises his eyebrows at her in disbelief.

“Do you think it will ever go away? Heal all the way?”

Coulson shrugs.

“Because eventually my scars —”

“I didn’t notice,” he sounds surprised, and Daisy smiles awkwardly and rises out of the water to show her bare stomach.

“Here,” she points to spots that are still slightly discolored, but barely noticeable.

“They healed,” he breathes, like it’s some kind of miracle, like _she’s_ some kind of miracle, and between the embarrassment and the breeze blowing over her wet skin, she shivers and decides to drop back into the water.

“Maybe yours will, too,” she offers, and he smiles at that, like he doesn’t really hold out that hope. “But it’s not like it’s that bad.”

“It’s that bad,” he disagrees, though he looks almost smiley about it.

“But it’s not like… I mean, you’re still…” She trails off because it seems somehow...wrong...to tell Coulson that he’s good looking.

He is, though. The silver in his chest hair, just like the silver at his temples, somehow suits him. The shape of his shoulders and the tiniest bit of softness at his belly, it just...suits him. She wouldn’t want him to look any different, and the scar doesn’t really take away from that..

“Flattery will get you everywhere,” he jokes as he steps into the bubbles with her, settling back against a jet, so she does the same, sitting across from him in the square tub.

It feels good, like her whole body goes soft and loose, and they sit in silence together just enjoying it, through one cycle of jets and then a second.

When the jets turn off the second time, Daisy tilts her head towards Coulson.

“We should get one of these for the base.”

“Hmm,” he sort-of agrees, rolling his neck against the edge of the tub. Beneath the water, she becomes aware that he’s bending and flexing his leg, like it’s bothering him.

“Are you okay? Did we walk too much?”

He shoots her a tight-lipped smile, answer enough even if he won’t say anything, and she pushes herself across the tub to half-kneel in the deeper well at the center of the tub, right at his knees.

“Daisy?”

“I can help. I think.”

Daisy sets her hand just below his knee, where she can feel the scar under her fingertips, and closes her eyes, letting herself feel the vibrations of his muscles and bones, of the healing tissue. It feels easy to use her powers as the whole tub goes silent and she can block out the world around her and just focus on him.

“Do you trust me?”

She regrets asking the question immediately, almost doesn’t want the answer, but Coulson comes back so quickly with:

“Of course.”

“Are you sure? Because —”

He touches her shoulder lightly, and she can feel the way his fingertips are pruny from the water.

“Of course I trust you,” he repeats, as though there’s nothing to it.

Her eyes slam shut for a moment, trying to hold back a current of emotion that she doesn’t have a place for.

“Hold really still,” she tells him, and sets her left hand just above his knee to keep his leg firmly in place.

Starting as softly as she can manage, she vibrates his muscle tissue. Lincoln helped her train for this, helped her feel out the right frequencies for healing and feeling good on the human body — something he was really helpful for, though right now she cuts off any thoughts about him.

“Ohh,” Coulson kind of half-groans, and sinks a little bit further under the still surface of the water.

“Apparently lots of physical therapists use targeted vibrations to help heal muscles,” she tells him quietly, unable to hold back a smile at the way he seems so relaxed.

“Much better than other physical therapy I’ve been doing,” he mumbles, his eyes closed and his head dropped back to the edge of the hot tub.

She watches him as she works on his calf, and it feels good to use her powers like this — intensely controlled, gentle, all her decision — to heal Coulson. It feels good that he would even admit he needed it, something he’d usually keep private. And he looks like he’s enjoying it, neck relaxed and arms stretched out on the sides of the tub.

His scar isn’t pretty, he’s right, but it’s strange how quickly it just fades into being a part of him, the same as his his chest hair the shape of his upper arms and the hard line of his jaw. Coulson is sort of _really_ sexy, it turns out. Not just hot in an abstract way, but with a body she specifically finds sexy. And it’s funny how it feels like a revelation and also not at all.

She almost blushes, turns her attention back to his leg and slides her hand up a little further, over his knee so she’s touching the top of his scar. She pauses with her hand on his thigh, suddenly worried that he’s going to object, but he doesn’t. In fact, he seems to relax further, lets his legs drift apart, doesn’t seem to even register the way she’s now pressed up between his thighs.

It feels suggestive to her, but she’s also in a mood to take whatever he’s willing to offer her.

His thigh feels different from his calf, thicker under her palm with more chaotic vibrations — she can practically feel that this is where it really hurts him. As she begins vibrating the muscle under her hand, Coulson’s breath catches, and she pulls her hand away.

“Coulson?”

“Yeah,” he breathes in around the word, hisses out a slow breath.

“Was that too much? I can try more gently.”

He nods slowly, and she’s so gentle as she slides her hand back up over his knee.

“I guess I overdid it today,” he mumbles, looking away from her like this is some kind of embarrassing admission, but he’s done a lot of damage to himself. And she understands not wanting to seem frail, but this is more.

“Luckily, I can help with that.”

He turns his head back to look at her and smiles softly as she starts to carefully vibrate the muscle groups in his thigh, easing tension. The rest of the world falls away as she concentrates on his leg, as though everything else goes still just so that she can be here with him.

“That’s good,” Coulson whispers, half moan and half breath, and for a moment she can feel the vibrations of his voice and his lungs, the way his limp body keeps trying to float to the top of the tub.

“Shhh,” she soothes him and lets her left hand land on his belly, pressing just a little to hold him in place. Under her hand, she can feel his abdominals tense. “Relax,” she tells him, punctuating the word with a squeeze of her fingers over his belly that makes him squirm and let out a _giggle_ , not a sound she’s ever heard from him.

Instead, he tugs her up next to him and wraps his right arm around her shoulders, and it’s not normal, not a way they’ve ever touched before, but it feels so good, warm and surrounded by him.

“That’s enough for tonight,” he tells her, “you should relax, too.” And like he’s offered it, she practically curls herself into his side, all naked wet skin and touching and warmth and things it turns out she maybe wants.

“I could do more later,” Daisy offers quietly, and he tilts his head to look down at her, meeting her eyes with so much tenderness and care and gratitude that she almost can’t look, has to turn her face away from it.

Her cheek makes contact with his chest, just beneath his shoulder, and he squeezes his arm tighter around her.

“I’ll keep that in mind,” he murmurs, and she can feel the vibrations of his words against her as much as hear them.

It feels a little bit like taking advantage, like she’s getting something here that’s more than what he means to offer, but then he tightens his arm around her shoulders and sighs happily, and Daisy lets her eyes slip shut as the vibrations of his body block out the rest of the world.

And she was definitely right. Staying in with Coulson is way, way better than going out with the _young people_.

 

* * *

 

 

She turns a slow circle in front of the mirror, trying to take in the drape of the dress against her lower back as she holds together the top of the dress behind her neck, since she can’t get the clasp. It’s red and satiny and she likes it a lot, but it seems like a lot to spend on something for one dinner.

It’s not like they have a lot of cause for fancy dresses, not like it will get a lot of other uses.

“Let me see,” he calls from outside the dressing room, where he’s sitting in what she’s pretty sure is called the “husband chair,” but that’s none of her business.

“You don’t have to stay here, you know,” she calls out. “I can pick out my own dress.”

It’s not that she doesn’t want him around — he’s actually really nice company, and she’s never actually known a man who was nice company on shopping trips before.

“Do you want me to leave?”

He sounds almost hurt, and Daisy pokes her head out of the curtain partition of the dressing room to see him frowning at her.

“I just figured you’d be bored.”

“I’m not,” he shrugs. “I like…”

He trails off as she steps fully out of the dressing room in the red dress and bare feet, her hand holding it closed behind her neck.

“...that one,” he offers, and Daisy raises her eyebrows at him. He’s been kind but lukewarm about the first three, but he seems a little stunned at this one, even though he can only see the front, relatively modest with a narrow slit of a keyhole. Her back, though, is almost entirely bare, and it makes her feel kind of sexy.

“Could you…” She turns around, her back facing him, and he quickly rises from his chair to do up the clasp at the top of her neck.

His hands are warm and gentle and _careful_ , so careful, no extraneous touches.

She tries not to be disappointed, can’t help the way her cheeks flush — one part arousal one part shame — as she thinks about his hands on her, rubbing across her shoulders and down her back.

“This dress is beautiful,” he murmurs as he steps away from her, and she turns.

“It’s the most expensive one I’ve tried,” she tells him, holding still as he grabs at the price tag dangling under her arm.

“SHIELD can swing it,” he dismisses. “We have money now.”

He says it offhand, as though it’s no big deal, but it’s a _big deal_ , a huge deal. Especially to him. SHIELD is finally legitimate again, and she knows how much it means to him, how much he has struggled to make any kind of difference while the world refuses to take him seriously.

“Does this count as a business-related expense?”

He just smiles in answer, and Daisy laughs as she turns to look at herself in the mirror. It’s definitely the best dress she’s seen, fitted and falling at her mid-calf, and probably the most beautiful piece of clothing she’s ever put on.

“And what are you wearing?”

“I brought a tux,” he answers like, duh of course he brought a tux. She’s the only spy without fancy clothes — and maybe actually that makes this a decent business expense.

“Very James Bond?”

“Sure,” he answers, raising his eyebrow at her in a move that’s way too flirty and just a touch sarcastic, like it’s ridiculous that he could be _very James Bond_.

It makes it impossible not to like him, honestly. It’s always been that way. It’s just that it would be really helpful if she wasn’t also suddenly aware of him as a _man_ , a good looking man with broad shoulders and chest hair.

She pushes all that aside, especially when he undoes the clasp around her neck, and she holds up the front of the dress until the dressing room curtain is pulled shut behind her and she can let it slide down and off her breasts.

 

* * *

 

 

“Oh, you’ll like this,” Coulson half-moans across the table from her, proffering a fork of his dessert — seven kinds of chocolate piled and drizzled and sprinkled artfully over the plate.

It feels so suggestive when she leans forward to eat off his fork, suggestive in a way she’s sure he definitely doesn’t mean to be.

Her own dessert is lemon custard and berries, and he’s just as happy to lean forward and eat off her fork.

Basically, the whole thing is incredible, and Coulson practically vibrates with excitement the whole time, this little grin across his face that makes him look so young.

Something about this week seems to have loosened his tongue, and he’s also free with stories about other fine meals and cooking with his mother and growing up. And she wonders if this is who Phil Coulson is when he’s on a date.

Not that they’re on a date.

But it’s _nice_ , falling into easy conversation that isn’t about missions and secret things. It’s _nice_ , the way he looks at her across the table.

It’s his fault, really, she’ll tell herself later, for looking at her like he does, like she matters and like he loves her and like everything she wants.

But actually, it’s her fault. Her recklessness, her ability to ruin even the best thing in her life, the _need_ that pulses through her body.

She pushes him up against the door once they’ve made it back inside their suite and kisses him, her mouth hot and desperate against his, basically on the same level thanks to her heels.

“I’m sorry,” she whispers somewhere between licking the roof of his mouth and running a hand down his front, down until she’s cupping him through his slacks.

In her own haze, she barely registers at first that he’s kissing back, that his hands have tugged her dress up almost to her waist, so he can palm her butt over her panties.

Her apology makes him pull away, so she can see his flushed face and his swollen lips and his eyes — darker blue than she’s ever seen them.

“Daisy,” he whispers, and it’s like at that moment she notices his hands on her body, notices the way he’s shifting his hips to rub against her hand, notices the way he wants this, too — whatever _this_ is.

That’s all it takes for her to press her mouth against his again, and she swallows his groan as she presses her palm more firmly to his groin.

A moment later, she’s the one pressed to the door, and Coulson pulls away just enough to pant against her lips as his right hand slips down her body.

Her mouth falls open as he brushes his fingers down over her panties, and she slams her head back against the door, neck extended backwards as her breath catches in her throat. His lips fall under her ear as his fingers push up inside her.

“ _Coulson_ ,” she gasps around his name as he fingers her, as his lips slide down her neck and she can _feel_ him moaning against her skin as his hand speeds up, fingerfucking her in earnest as she pants against the side of his face.

She comes _hard_ , grip locked around his biceps, releasing tiny high-pitched noises as he nips at her neck.

He’s out of breath, as though he’s the one who came instead of her, nuzzling beneath her ear when she runs her hand down his body again, feeling out his cock inside his slacks until he’s groaning and almost humping her hand.

Her fingers shake as she unbuckles his belt and tugs down his fly so she can wrap her hand around him, stroking slowly as he bucks his hips against her hand. His cock is smooth under her palm, baby soft under the pads of her fingers but rock hard as she squeezes her palm around him.

She loves that, loves the feel of him in her hand.

His fingers slip away from her as she strokes him, and he goes all whimpery and pathetic against her neck.

“Daisy,” he grunts her name into her ear, “Daisy, are you…” She can feel him swallow and then moan as she hooks her leg up around his hip.

She jumps slightly, forcing him to catch her and hold her up against the door, his fingers digging into her hips and his pelvis pressed to hers. Then it’s just a slight adjustment so he’s pressing up inside of her, and she manages to wrap her fingers around the back of his head and pull his mouth to hers.

He starts thrusting in earnest, and she meets him at each movement, clenching her thighs tightly around his hips, searching for the angle that will give her what she needs, for the angle that makes her brain buzz every time he pushes all the way inside her.

“Fuck,” he grunts into her mouth, way too soon if she’s being honest, as he shudders helplessly against her body between her legs. “Fuck.”

There’s a moment of frustrating stillness, of her body still begging for more, before he pulls away. She’s unable to hold back a whimper of frustration, even though she usually tries her best not to let dudes hear things like that, and then his hand is pressed back between her legs, his fingers curved inside her.

“ _Coulson_ ,” she grunts as he starts fucking her again — hard, sure motions with his fingers that make her head fog and her limbs get heavy until she’s coming against his hand again, too blissed out to notice the way he steers her backwards towards his room.

 

* * *

 

 

Daisy drifts awake in his bed, stretching under the sheets and unable to hold back a smile at the pleasant ache between her legs, at the way her thighs burn from the workout last night. She had squeezed so tight around his hips, and then around his _head_ , and that makes her think about his tongue, firm and insistent, about the way he ate her out like it was all he wanted to do with his life.

No one has ever worked that hard for her before, as though the whole point of sex is just to make her feel good, and even just the memory of it is...intense. But it was also _so much_ _more_ than sex, so much more, and all the confusion about labels and touches and how she’s supposed to act around him....it just suddenly makes sense. He’s Coulson and of course she wants this, of course this means something because — duh — he’s _Coulson_.

And it totally makes sense that he would be the best sex she’s ever had.

Any good thoughts fade, though, when she realizes that she’s _alone_ in the large bed, that Coulson has slipped out at some point during the night.

It makes her stomach twist, her blood run cold, except for her face, which she can feel heating up. Embarrassment that she could think that just because he made her come again and again on his tongue before he fucked her for the second time in the bed, that that would...mean something.

Obviously that’s just how Coulson has sex, it’s not about _her_ , and she should have known that he’d have no interest in extending this — that he’d consider it a mistake, the product of too many glasses of wine.

And she can take the hint, is the thing. She doesn’t need to hear him say it (can’t possibly handle hearing him say it), and she’s not even angry.

She tells herself.

(It’s not even him, not really, she’ll realize when she stops to consider it later. It’s _her_ , it’s the way she was so fucking ready to give herself over to something — to someone — the way she feels so vulnerable and _needy_ that scares the shit out of her.)

Moving quickly, she rolls out of bed and pokes her head out the door to scan the living room. It’s empty, her dress laid out neatly over the side of the couch, definitely not how they left it last night. And the bathroom door is open, which means he’s not there.

And it totally doesn’t bother her at all that Coulson didn’t just flee their shared bed, but also the suite.

She darts, naked, down the hall to collect her toiletries because she can _feel_ him on every part of her body and that’s not going to work if she’s supposed to pretend that the night before didn’t mean anything.

She’s efficient in the shower, getting rid of the smell of him on her skin, trying to block out the memory of his hands on her breasts, her hips, her thighs. When she runs her soapy fingers between her legs, she clenches her jaw against the shudder, against the flood of sense memory.

Outside the shower, she wraps her hair in a towel and pulls on one of the sundresses she packed, trying to steel herself for whatever she’s supposed to say when Coulson gets back.

She’s somehow not expecting it when he’s sitting at the bar drinking a cup of to go coffee from the nice coffeeshop downstairs, smiling at her and holding out another cup.

“Hi. I got breakfast, I was hoping I’d —”

“Thanks,” Daisy offers, taking the cup and cutting him off because she _really_ doesn’t want to have this conversation. “We should talk about tonight, right?”

He frowns at her.

“Or maybe we should talk about —”

“Coulson? Can we just talk about tonight?” His frown deepens somehow, and she’d almost swear he looks hurt. “I just…”

He nods, though it’s slowly, reluctantly.

“Yeah. Okay.”

She sits down beside him, but they don’t talk about tonight. For a long time, they don’t talk about anything. Instead, he just kind of looks at her like she kicked him, like he’s a literal small animal that she’s kicked, and her face flushes.

Shame, maybe, but she _can’t_ talk about this now, she can’t.

 

* * *

 

 

She brought a suit for the event, just a basic white shirt under a tailored black pants and jacket. It makes her feel comfortable as she imagines being in a room surrounded by mostly men. More comfortable than a dress would anyways.

They’re awkward as they walk down together, but it helps to step more fully into their roles, and maybe the way that some of the warmth has drained out of Coulson fits better with this persona.

“Mr. Smith, Miss,” they’re greeted at the door of the ridiculous ballroom, ushered into a room full of the kind of wealthy assholes who show up to buy potential doomsday devices.

Coulson hands her gently down a staircase, and she still has no idea how to act like his daughter, but she images that the awkward distance between them comes off like that. Maybe.

It’s strangely comforting when he visibly winces at the first mention of Daisy as his daughter, though he catches himself quickly.

They work the room, and they do it well — awkwardness or not, they’re a good team. They get names, faces, pictures of everything being auctioned, and she starts to feel a little bit okay about it, like they’re doing something useful here.

Then the special auction items come out — photos of large, human-sized cubes that look disturbingly familiar and reports on Inhuman powers — and it makes her stomach drop past her feet. It’s worse because she didn’t know, she had no time to prepare herself for the literal sale of Inhumans tonight. Her face flushes, and she’s too fucking angry to think about being a good agent, too fucking angry to think about this as a mission. She wants to tear the building down.

(A glance at Coulson’s ashen face says he didn’t know either, which is something at least.)

She can’t tear down the building, of course. As with the rest of their recon tonight, it’s more important to find out where it’s coming from than who’s buying it — they can’t stop it, not long term, if she tips their hand at a relatively small event like this.

It’s really hard to feel good about anything when she’s standing in a room of people who feel entitled to _buy_ human beings.

(One of the men she met in her time on her own — one of the ones trying to do some good with his gift — likened the whole idea of registration to slavery. But even Luke wasn’t talking about this part of it, about what can happen when those names end up in the wrong places, these kind of effects of the dehumanization of her people.)

It’s infuriating that this can happen, that the kinds of people engaged in this are the kinds of people who influence the laws in the first place, so there’s no way anyone is going to do anything about it through official channels.

Her body shakes with it, with the sense of powerlessness, of how little she can actually accomplish when the scope is so huge.

And Coulson has been distant all day — so has she, it’s not like she can blame him — but when the boxes come out, he curls his hand around her shoulder, offering comfort because he’s Coulson and that’s what he always does.

“We’re going to stop this,” he whispers just under her ear, just exactly what she needs to hear right now.

“I know,” she agrees, and relaxes a little for the first time since she woke up alone in his bed.

Their eyes meet, and it calms her — the way he’s so worried about her and how she feels, the way he _means it_ , that they’ll stop this. Together. That they’re in this together.

And more than anything, it fills up something inside of her, some part of her that has maybe forgotten that she’s not alone, that she has help, that it’s okay to need people.

The scope of what she can do, it isn’t just what _she_ can do.

And when he meets her eyes, she thinks maybe he gets that, too.

In the big picture of her life, going off on her own was a return to normal — her time at SHIELD just a few years, a drop in the bucket of a longer time spent alone. And maybe she hasn’t fully readjusted to this idea, of being back, of having people, of the peace of knowing someone else always has her back.

No matter what.

She looks over at Coulson’s serious face, at how he means it _so much_ when he tells her they’re going to stop this, and she’s just...grateful.

Later, back in their suite, she’s still shaking with it, with the anger and horror, but Coulson is still Coulson, his hand resting carefully on her shoulder.

It means a lot that even though she hurt him earlier today, even though he looked like a kicked puppy, he still smooths his hand along her back in this new gesture he’s adopted. He still cares enough to try to make her feel better.

“Do you want a drink?” He tilts his head over towards the bar, and Daisy nods, takes a seat on their large couch while she watches him pour bourbon. When he passes her the glass, though, he moves to sit away from her, and she grabs his hand to stop him, to pull him down next to her.

He takes the direction easily and settles himself so she can lean against him.

“Does this mean you’re ready to talk about last night?” His voice is so soft but obviously hopeful.

“Not really,” Daisy answers honestly because she’s not sure what to say about last night, about this morning. Still, she presses her forehead to his shoulder affectionately because she can, because he’s here and she feels affectionate.

“Okay.” He says it like it’s not actually completely okay, but he sounds content enough with the way things are anyways.

“I’m sorry I freaked out,” she manages.

She can feel him shake his head, like her apology isn’t necessary, even though she’s pretty sure it’s extremely necessary.

“I’m sorry I wasn’t there when you woke up. I didn’t think —”

“It wasn’t that.”

He tilts his head enough that he can see her, that she can see his furrowed brow.

“Okay, it was a little bit that,” she admits. “But mostly, I just… I was just scared.”

“I _am_ very scary,” he half-jokes, but his hand squeezes her shoulder, makes it clear he’s not trying to minimize her feelings.

“What I feel for you is…” Daisy licks her lips and looks up at him through her eyelashes, searching for the courage to say something she’s never exactly managed to say to anyone. “...a lot,” she finally gets out, and even that feels like a terrifying admission.

He squeezes her closer, turns to press his nose to her hair, like he understands what a big thing that is.

“I feel a lot for you, too,” he whispers against her head, and then presses his lips there.

“Including...fatherly things?”

She can feel him freeze, feel his obvious discomfort with the idea.

“I tried,” he admits. “I’m a lot older than you,” he tells her like this is something that matters to him, something he’s thought about too much, “and I care about you and you were with…”

“But you don’t…”

“No,” he answers, finally.

“That’s good, Coulson,” she sighs, and maybe defining whatever the big feelings they feel for each other are doesn’t matter so much, doesn’t have to be so scary.

She nods and closes her eyes, lets her head fall against his shoulder, and just enjoys it.

 

* * *

 

She wakes up in the morning in his bed again, this time without the pleasant soreness between her legs, but _with_ his quiet warm presence against her back.

Daisy flips over, and in his sleep, Coulson goes with her so she’s spooned up behind him with her arms tight around his chest. He sighs into the cuddle and sort of wiggles himself back against her, and she likes the feel of it — of Coulson warm and soft and asleep in her arms.

They had stumbled to his bed early in the morning after passing out on the couch, and she vaguely remembers Coulson stripping down to his undershirt and boxers, remembers grabbing his white button down and pulling it on as she tugged off her underwear.

Now, she can push her bare leg between his, feel hair against her smooth skin, and it’s good. Real in a way the sex somehow wasn’t, just the quiet solid physical presence of Coulson’s body, still enough for her to absorb the reality of it.

Her hands, too, slide along his chest, enjoying the feel of him under white cotton, and he half-moans in his sleep and presses his ass back against her, like he’s trying to get closer. It makes her more bold in her slow exploration, more sure of her hands on him, and finally willing to slide her hands down and then up to dip under his shirt, to touch his skin and run gentle fingers through his chest hair.

She’s seen it, of course, but she hadn’t gotten to do this before, to touch him because she wants to, like it’s her right to do so.

(She’s actually not sure it’s her right to do so, to explore the planes of his chest and the feel of coarse hair between her fingers while he’s asleep, but he moves every so often, pressing his hips back against her, and it doesn’t feel wrong.)

When her hand drifts back down to his stomach, feeling the thicker hair at the top of his boxer shorts, she pauses at the waistband, hesitates to push further, though just the thought of it makes wet heat pulse between her legs.

Which is when Coulson’s hand joins hers, and she doesn’t know when he woke up, how long he’s been conscious of her hands on him. But he’s calm, steady about it as his fingers link through hers and guide her hand down over the top of his boxers, so they feel out the shape of his early morning erection through the cotton — warm and hard and _him_.

He hisses out a long, slow breath as he guides her hand to press against him, and she lays a soft kiss against the back of his neck as he slides her palm down the length of his cock, as they lightly cup his balls, as he pushes her fingers up below them and groans at the pressure.

His hand drifts away from hers, leaves her to continue touching him on her own as he rolls back against her enough to leave himself wide open for exploration, like it’s just about her and what she wants.

Moving on her own, she slides her hand back up his cock, using fingernails over cotton in a way that makes Coulson whimper and pulse his hips back against her a little desperately, especially when her fingernails draw soft patterns over the head.

As she replaces fingernails with her palm, curving her whole hand around the head of his cock and squeezing, the whimpers become moans.

She can almost feel the energy building up in him, the way his whole body seems to vibrate under her palm when she grips him as best she can through the shorts and jacks him off a few times, just enjoying the feel of him in her fingers.

Then she creeps her hand down further, between his legs and up under the loose leg of his boxers, over leg hair until she’s pressing beneath his balls again, where he’d directed her.

Coulson whimpers again, and she can feel his arm move, like he wants to do something — direct her, touch her, touch himself — but he doesn’t. Instead, he stays still except to prop his leg up, giving her more room to touch him.

Except it’s not enough.

“Roll over?” She asks him quietly, the first words they’ve exchanged since they passed out last night, and pairs the request with another kiss against the back of his neck.

They move together, so she creates enough space for Coulson to land on his back, and Daisy pauses for a long moment, looking down at him — rumpled from sleep, eyes soft and crinkled in the early morning light. He’s never looked so handsome, she thinks, as he does right now.

When she leans down to kiss him, though, he holds her back and frowns, licking his lower lip self-consciously.

“Morning breath,” he whispers in a warm, gravelly voice that makes her shiver, that makes it impossible _not_ to kiss him.

“Don’t care,” she answers, and then kisses him, soft and sweet at first, so she can feel him smile against her, and then deeper. His hands land on her back, holding her gently against him.

(The thought flits through her brain, of whether he usually sleeps with the prosthetic on, of whether he left it on for her, figures this is something she’ll have to figure out later.)

When she pulls back, he smiles up at her, and no, _this_ is the most handsome he’s ever looked.

“Goodmorning,” he murmurs, still in the sexy whisper that makes her shiver.

“Goodmorning,” she replies as she runs her hand back up his shirt. “Take off your clothes.”

It makes him laugh, but he complies easily, tugging the undershirt up over his head and then wiggling his hips to slip the boxers down his legs.

He smiles up at her in his newly-naked state, maybe slightly embarrassed, but none of the shyness and discomfort from the other night. Instead, he looks confident and very... _cute_ in a way that’s somehow completely _Coulson_. And also completely different than what she and Coulson have ever had.

The reality of it makes her chest feel warm, and then she sucks in a slow breath as her eyes drift down his naked body, down the chest hair she’s touched to his cock, still mostly hard.

Slowly, she runs her hand back down his chest, watching the play of her nails through hair until she’s wrapping her fingers around his bare cock, and Coulson grunts her name.

“Daisy,” he sucks in a breath and then exhales a moan, and Daisy scoots down the bed between his legs, unabashedly looking him over, since he doesn’t seem to mind.

She likes this, finding familiarity with his body, and she leans forward to press her nose next to his cock, breathing him in as she slides her hand in a smooth stroke up and down the shaft. He hardens fully in her hand, so that when she squeezes, she can feel him pulsing slightly in her fingers..

“Shit, Daisy, that’s,” he sucks in loud, desperate breaths, and when she turns her head to lick the head of his cock, he moans.

There’s something primally satisfying about knowing him this way, his smell and his taste and the noises he makes as he lets himself go underneath her.

By the time she wraps her lips around him, he sounds almost desperate — his hips keep moving underneath her, and his right hand combs through her hair with shaky fingers.

“Daisy,” he grunts her name and clutches at the back of her neck, trying to pull her away. “Daisy you have to stop.”

When she pulls back, it’s with a frown — sooner than she’d have liked — but Coulson has obviously given up on holding back because he practically tugs her up his body, like he’s desperate to get her lips back on his.

They roll across the bed, so Coulson is propped over her, and he presses a kiss below her ear and then slides his mouth down her neck until he hits the collar of the shirt she’s wearing — _his_ shirt, and that strikes her as sexy in a way it didn’t when she put it on, to be naked except for his shirt.

The softness of his lips, of his breath, makes her shudder, and she lets out an embarrassingly loud moan as she arches towards him, her body almost instinctually begging for more.

Coulson takes the hint easily and begins to work his fingers down the buttons at the front of the shirt she’s wearing. He’s not slow about it — actually, he works with a quiet sense of urgency — but he’s so _careful_ , so purposeful in every motion, and it’s that sense again of reality, of realness, of him and her them, and it’s _good_.

His hands shake slightly when he finally finishes and pulls the two halves of the shirt apart, like he was saving up the view even though he’s seen her naked already. It manages to feel like the first time, though, as she watches his jaw drop open slightly, his eyes somehow darker as he drags them down her body.

And she knows she’s attractive; she’s used it to her advantage enough times, of course she knows. But it’s different when it’s Coulson looking at her like this, all soft but urgent, all aroused but _feeling_ , and she arches underneath him again, enjoying the way it feels as his loving gaze melts into his gentle hands and then his eager lips moving from her neck to her breasts down her stomach.

He presses up between her legs, open mouthed and desperate with it, and Daisy runs her hand through his hair as Coulson begins to work his tongue against her, quick firm flicks that make heat drip down her legs.

Every time she curls her fingers into his hair, trying to pull at the too-short strands, he grunts against her and takes it as direction, working harder and faster until she’s shaking with it.

When she tugs him upwards, he nearly pouts about it, and she can’t help the quiet laugh that bubbles up from her chest.

“You like that, huh?”

“Hmm,” he agrees as he licks his lips and drags the back of his hand across his mouth, partly covering a self-conscious grin.

“It’s a good thing,” she assures him as she rolls them back across the bed, so she’s perched over him, and whatever Coulson was about to say turns into a groan as she wraps her fingers around his cock and guides him to press against her.

He feels good inside of her, a perfect stretch, and his soft eyes underneath her — his quiet unwavering strength underneath her, the reminder that she isn’t alone — it makes it all perfect. Better than the stupid reckless burst of energy that led them here before; now it’s just about them.

“Daisy,” he groans her name, and she begins to rock her hips over him, quickly finding the perfect angle.

She moves slowly, enjoying every move he makes to thrust up against her, especially when he slides his hands up her body, his jaw dropped open in something that looks like awe.

It doesn’t take long for her to grind herself to orgasm against Coulson’s careful thrusts and his thumb pressing to her clit, and he follows after her over the edge.

After, she curls herself into his chest and closes her eyes, catching her breath with his solid presence beneath her.

“I’m glad we came here together,” she murmurs into his shoulder.

“We have a lot more to do,” Coulson reminds her, trailing soft fingers up and down her spine. And they do, there’s a lot more to do, a lot to worry about, but she doesn’t have to do it on her own.

She gets _him_ , she gets someone having her back, and it feels oddly like coming home for the first time since she came back, here in a hotel room on vacation.

“Yeah, but we can do it.”


End file.
